WoW: New content for season of the championship? Interview with Brian Birmingham

Following the pimped bosses in Molten Core, as we all know, the Season of Mastery's Bad Luck Hoard will be getting a makeover as well, in terms of the strength of the nasties, their abilities, and the combat mechanics. Brian Birmingham, Lead Software Engineer for WoW Classic, recently spoke with a Wowhead editor about the new Season of Championship content and the previously neglected Era servers. We have summarized the most important findings for you.

Season of the Championship of WoW Classic

• There are two groups of players who currently enjoy playing Season of Mastery. Both groups have one thing in common: they like vanilla WoW, but criticized Blizzard's #nochanges policy during WoW Classic.
• Group number 1 called for disabling or banning in raids of World Buffs from the beginning. The bottom line is that they cared more about a Vanilla-like game experience than the original Vanilla rules. 17 years ago, raids did not use the existing World Buffs nearly as efficiently as they did later in WoW Classic.
• Also, from that first group came repeated criticism that the original raid instances were far too easy. They wanted harder challenges within the vanilla framework.

Blizzard developer Brian Birmingham talked about WoW Classic: Season of Mastery and Classic Era. Source: Blizzard

• Group number 2 liked most about Vanilla and Classic was the feeling of exploring the original WoW (buy now ) all over again. However, many of these players quit while still in the leveling stage because leveling felt too tough or they got the feeling that they couldn't keep up with the other players.
• With the changes for the Championship season, Blizzard wanted to target these two groups.
• In addition, the goal was to get the hardcore community excited about Championship Season. With the optional hardcore mode , they succeeded.
• According to Brian Birmingham, it was a good decision to offer Bleak Quarry, Dungeon Set 2, and the Honor System right at the start of the season. The developers wanted to give players more options, and the goal was achieved. So it doesn't matter that many players ignore the raid section and equip themselves via the honor system.

New content for WoW Classic

• When it came to adjustments for the bosses in the vanilla raids, the developers first wanted to make sure that the fights would last longer, even if players could earn even stronger equipment from phase 1 than they could in WoW Classic. So first, the health points of Ragnaros and co. had to be noticeably increased.
• When these changes hit the PTR, however, there were questions across the board about cool new mechanics, and only then did the developers dare to think in that direction as well. Brainstorming sessions, feedback meetings and the next PTR test followed. It was important to the developers that the new mechanics fit the respective bosses (and that you can use already existing assets, so that it feels as if the new mechanics just always belonged) and that there is no cheese strategy with which a complete fight can be leveraged.

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WoW Classic: Much tougher raid bosses await you in the championship season. Source: Blizzard

• The developers always have in mind whether they overshoot the targeted goal by increasing the difficulty level. Especially in Molten Core, there are many moderately useful "epics" that players don't really want to wipe for over several hours. Also, there's a lot of players in the vanilla community who like the social aspect of Classic and the 40-player raids above all else. It's a balancing act that won't get any easier with the upcoming raid instances.
• Due to the dominance of melee playstyles in terms of DpS potential, the mechanics wanted to avoid putting ranged players at an even greater disadvantage. Mechanics that made frontline soldiers sweat a bit, on the other hand, were okay. It was important to the designers that all roles find a place in the raid. If all the melee fighters suddenly end up on the bench, something went wrong in the design process.
• The developers are aware that many Classic fans are hoping for completely new dungeons and raid instances. Currently, the focus is clearly on the first season of the championship and TBC Classic. For the time after that, there are already a lot of ideas. It is, as so often, a question of time feasibility.

Banning penalties and Classic eraSince

• developers increased the penalties for gold purchases, there are significantly fewer players who use these unauthorized services, according to Brian Birmingham

• In addition, numerous players who use such services or automated bots could be banned. This was an important step in the fight against bots and real money transactions.
• For the Classic era, there are no plans for a tournament server or mode for interested communities, where all the expensive consumable items will be available without limit, because farming these important items is so tedious. Because that's what WoW Classic is all about, if you want to dominate Warsong Gulch, for example: farming the stuff you need for minmaxing.